Well, dear readers, berserk is the word that comes to mind. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, berserk is a word that comes to mind. Yesterday was berserk. Everything about it was berserk. It was crazy, it was kooky and altogether ooky. It started early and went far too late. My intention had been to not speak at all during the day. I held to that save for about ten minutes until about one-thirty, at which point I spoke non-stop for about five hours. First of all, instead of getting a great night’s beauty sleep, once again, I woke up about five times between midnight and three. At three I couldn’t get to sleep until four-thirty. Then I got up at ten, so somewhere in there was eight hours, I’m sure, but it just didn’t feel like eight hours, and therein lies the problem and the problem lies therein. Once up, I began answering e-mails. That all went fine for about an hour and then came berserk. My track pad, or at least I thought it was my track pad began behaving oddly, as if it had a mind of its own. It basically went berserk, highlighting things I wasn’t highlighting, opening documents, minimizing documents, not responding normally to the one-finger or two-finger commands that it’s always responded to. I did see that the wireless keyboard needed new batteries, so I figured that might be it and changed them. That did nothing and the problem was getting worse and truly irritating. Concurrent with this I did notice that my Dropbox was sending constant update and deletion messages to the desktop – it’s set up to do that whenever files are added or deleted so I can go grab mp3s to listen to. But this was not that – this almost seemed like it was in some crazy loop. I thought it odd that I was having these two problems at the same time but I didn’t really connect them as I was sure it was a problem with the track pad. I called Apple Care and got a nice gal. She wasn’t really that helpful – we restarted the computer, but that didn’t help. Finally, thinking maybe the track pad was stuck somehow I clicked it a bunch of times and then things seemed to work so I got off the phone and said I’d monitor it.
Then I went and had an omelet and a bagel, then picked up two packages, then put gas in the motor car, after which I came home. I sat down to check e-mails and boom – berserk again, worse than before. I was ready to stomp on the track pad. I called Apple Care again, got a nice man on the phone and he had me do a few things. He then wanted me to do stuff I wasn’t comfortable with so I asked for a senior tech and got a really nice gal. She put me through a bunch of troubleshooting things, none of which helped at all. After trying a lot of stuff, she suggested a complete reinstall of the operating system. She assured me everything would be exactly as it was before, but that the reinstall would probably fix the problem. So, we did it. I got her private number and e-mail, as it was going to take over an hour. It ended up taking about an hour and fifteen minutes. By that time, she was off work but she’d arranged for another senior tech to help me. He called, and we waited the five minutes while it completed. Once it had we did some tests and boom – berserk worse than ever. He had me shut down, boot up in safe mode and it was even worse. He could hear me beginning to hyperventilate, but he was very calm and just kept trying to suss out the problem. While in safe mode, he had me put a folder called caches into the trash. He then wanted me to put two more folders but by that time the berserk had reached epic proportions and I couldn’t control the track pad at all. He then finally got me into system preferences and had me remove everything that I had starting up when I turned on the computer. When booting up, Word automatically launched, as did iCalander and Safari. Then I happened to mention the Dropbox weirdness, so he said that was apparently launching automatically, too, so we stopped that from happening, then we restarted the computer. This time, no berserk. All was back to normal. He said he’d be truly amazed if it were the caches folder but that stranger things had happened. He had me do a capture data thing, which I then sent him and now the techs will analyze what was going on and hopefully pinpoint it – if they find it was something in the caches folder then we’ll know that that’s what it was. He told me they wouldn’t have that information maybe until Friday. In the meantime, he suggested I call the gal senior tech back in the morning.
But the more I thought about it the more I thought that it was the Dropbox causing the problems – it was in some weird land and I’m sure that’s what was doing it all. I later found out that someone who’d uploaded stuff yesterday had done so in a really weird way and I’m thinking that whatever happened caused something to glitch and that once we stopped Dropbox from launching, that fixed everything – and sure enough, everything’s been fine ever since. I’m now petrified to launch Dropbox and certainly don’t want it to do so when I boot up the computer or do a restart. It’s still in my applications folder and I can launch from there, but I’ll only do that while on the phone with the senior tech, just to make sure it’s all okay. Otherwise, I can access Dropbox through their website, but it’s a bit of a pain in the butt cheeks to get stuff that way. On my desktop, everything is in a folder where I can then drag stuff to iTunes. On the site, it’s all in lists and you have to actually download each track, drag it to the desktop and then into iTunes and that’s a lot of extra work. I didn’t finish with all that stuff until six-thirty, basically my entire day and non-stop yakking on the phone. And boy was I ready to sit on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Airport, starring everyone. Airport was a huge hit back in the day. I saw it several times during its first week and just loved it, even the awkward dramatic scenes involving Burt Lancaster and Dana Wynter. When I got the DVD I enjoyed watching it again but it looked not so hot. Watching last night was like revisiting an old friend. Yes it’s got that Ross Hunter gloss, yes it’s corny, yes, it’s soapy and melodramatic, but I gotta tell you it’s all fantastically entertaining, every minute of it. The cast is great – Burt Lancaster is his usual great self in a thankless role, Jean Seberg is beautiful, Jacqueline Bissett is beyond beautiful, Dean Martin is really good, Lloyd Nolan is always great, and Helen Hayes and George Kennedy walk away with any scene they’re in. But the two best performances are really the heart of the film and they belong to Van Heflin and Maureen Stapleton – both are textbook examples of great screen acting and how to give inner life to supporting characters who could become a cliché in lesser hands. George Seaton keeps it all humming along and it never feels like it’s two hours and sixteen minutes. The pace is helped greatly by the fantastic score of Alfred Newman. I’m happy to say that the transfer looks great. Yes, it seems like the cleaned up the film’s many opticals, but it’s subtle, much like the Pillow Talk opticals. Otherwise, the color is perfect, it’s sharp, great contrast, with the only weird part of the transfer being almost all of the non-optical cockpit shots, which LOOK like opticals and may well in fact BE opticals, although I can’t figure out why. I’m going to look at them again, to see if they had to be opticals to fix a problem. The stereo sound is robust.
After that, I got a little snack at Gelson’s and came home and ate it. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep. Part of the problem last night was it was very hot in the house – I’m turning on the air right now to cool it down.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. I’ll call the senior tech, just to try the Dropbox thing. Then our very own Mr. Nick Redman will be by, then I think I’m meeting someone for a late lunch or early dinner, then I have a little work session. So, not quite the day off – in fact, that is apparently not going to happen unless I really put my foot down and make Friday the day off, which I may just do.
Tomorrow may just be a day off, but tomorrow night I’m going to a nightclub downtown to see a group of gal singers and dancers called the Satin Dollz – the helper is part of it so that will be fun. Saturday I hope will be a day of rest, as will Sunday, then Sunday night it’s the Hollywood Bowl, and then we have our very busy rehearsal week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, call a senior tech, have a visit with Nick Redman, maybe have a late lunch or early dinner and have a work session. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all-time favorite films involving airplanes? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that the berserk doings of the day are hopefully done.